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well, don't own a car, so no option. And had an appointment. but beleive me, if I'd not had to go today, I wouldn't have ventured out, it's horrible out there.
- Rachel Clarke
Welcome Baby Ryan!!! My baby Ryan (17 years!) and I are honored to welcome another superstar to our planet! Love, hugs, and lots of kisses to Baby Ryan, Mommy Maryam, Dad Robert and big brothers Milan & Patrick and of course Grandma!!! My guess on Ryan's arrival (predication) was only 23 hours off. I thought he would arrive on Friday, Sept. 18th at 11:45 pm. Love to all, Kelly & Ryan Kim
- Kelly S. Kim
What a moment, eh? I remember when my daughter came into this world, it was so exciting there were no words for it. Congrats on your wonderful baby boy!
- Michael J. Carrasquillo
Congratulations! Welcome to the world, Ryan. :-)
- Yvette Ferry
Congratulations Robert and Maryam! And welcome Ryan. If I was having a baby today, I'd begin a blog for him/her straight away as an online diary they could look back on when grown up.
- Sandra Large
الهــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــی چقده ناز نازیه.اینو فارسی نوشتم مریم جان بخونن ....راستی به باباش که نرفته:)) خوشگلتره:)) پس به شما رفته
- joupy
I was a c-section six week preemie in an era when that was seriously life-threatening, they didn't know if I would make for the first week. It always gets me a see a c-section / preemie come howling into the world. Welcome, little guy!
- Bob Morris (polizeros)
from iPhone
Beautiful baby! Congratulations daddy man :)
- Gary
:) Congrats Robert... best wishes to your family! Get her name in twitter and ff!
- Business Blogger【ツ】™
Right ON! I am so happy for you. I have 4 kids of my own and they are my greatest joys. Take care and I hope all goes so smooth for him and mom.
- Robert Anderson
Congrats! I wish a long and healthy life.
- Muammer Okumuş
Robert, you newest addition is too freaking adorable. I hope you and Maryam are doing well. Congratulations! Here's to a long, prosperous future!
- Mike Nayyar
We came in this morning for an aversion proceedure (turn the baby into position). They were expecting to induce if they could get him aimed the right way. Five minutes before they were supposed to do the procedure he turned the right way by himself. Then 20 minutes later he turned again. Drat. Anyway, now they are in the process of inducing and watching. Won't know for sure what's going on until later tonight. -
- Robert Scoble
Right now we're just resting and waiting for the inducing agents to start their jobs. It's still possible that we might have to have a caesarian section, because little Ryan isn't in the right position. More probably later this evening, for now I get to geek out while Maryam takes a nap.
- Robert Scoble
Sending lots of beams to Maryam (and you too!) I am out of the loop. I had no idea that the family was growing (and tell M, I'm going to be a grammy come March 1)
- Nancy White
Fingers crossed for a natural delivery... unless Maryam would prefer a c-section ;) Good Luck.
- Travis Koger
What a handsome name you've chosen ;)
- Ryan Whitwam
Robert: I wish you and your wife the safest and best possible birth experience! Here's to a healthy baby boy and Mom!! Keeping you in my thoughts. Leslie
- Leslie Carothers
Good luck to you both; hope all goes smoothly & swiftly.
- Rachel Luxemburg
Nothing but good and positive wishes to Maryam and you and that RSS will come out the second to prettiest baby ever (naturally ours is the prettiest) *wink*
- Rene Wirtz
David: my other son, Patrick, was named for a saint and Milan was named for one of the best writers ever. So there.
- Robert Scoble
Robert!!!!! What great news; it will be early. Why did they induce if the due date was the 25th, or was I wrong?
- Francine Hardaway
wishing you the best. we have a girl due in a few months :)
- Stalyn☂
Francine: because hospitals like to schedule babies, is my guess (Sequoia is like a hotel). But he was breech and they wanted to get him into position, now that she's here they are doing the induction thing.
- Robert Scoble
Good wishes to all. I've never met you and even I'm nervous.
- Amyloo
Good luck with everything, Robert!!! Very exciting! I hope everything turns out perfect in the end!!
- Fa La La La Lindsay
Best wishes Scobs! This must be a very exiting day!
- Jadito
So the doctor said that Ryan is one of the five most active babies she has seen in her practice which is why they didn't let us go home. Usually babies at this stage stay heads down. Ryan isn't. I think we have a wild one! :-)
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski: "To be successful, you need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy.... But I don't see a lot of that yet. I see (businesses) saying, 'Let's talk to people on Twitter or let's have a Facebook page or let's advertise.' And these are good first steps but they are nowhere close to a social strategy." This is why I work on strategy and not just campaigns. It's about long-term behaviour not short term advertising
- Rachel Clarke
Scobe was going for TUFFIE - iPhone app for bullies
- A.J. Pape
Doesn't the whole idea of the Whuffie bank basically destroy (by quantifying) the notion of altruistic mutual aid? It's like paying people to do what's right....u stop paying and then they stop doing it.
- A.J. Pape
I just wanted to lose cause I feel like hanging myself.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
More stats on social media network usage " study found that even though 52% percent of the 1,000 women surveyed have befriended or become a fan of at least one brand on a social network, 83% nonetheless feel 'neutral' or 'negative' when they see a brand on a social networking site. Only 17% said they feel positive."
- Rachel Clarke
This is for usage by companies, internally and externally "The median level of gains derived from internal Web 2.0 use ranged from a 10 percent improvement in operational costs to a 30 percent increase in the speed at which employees are able to tap outside experts."
- Rachel Clarke
"Mark Begley, Major Players' head of digital and creative, said despite a 390% growth in the number of candidates with social media experience in the last two years, these candidates only make up approximately only 2 per cent of the total talent pool."
- Rachel Clarke
To include social media in your online business branding, you should include time spent researching what you need to do to brand your business....
- Rachel Clarke
I wish Twitter would sell to Google so it would die like Jaiku and Dodgeball. But I won't post this over on Twitter. I really don't have much love for the service, even though I know I'll be stuck using it for the indefinite future. Jesse Stay has it figured out. It's a horrid place to try to communicate anything other than a bit of self pimping.
Here I can write the equivilent of an entire blog post. And even make changes. And even have a conversation. And use it as many times an hour as I want (Twitter rate limits my apps after a while cause I'm too heavy of a user).
- Robert Scoble
I can sense already that FriendFeed is slowing down now that it is joining Facebook, while Twitter still has the best flow (and best system for following people and best mobile clients). So, we're stuck with Twitter, which is too bad, because the technology here is a ton better.
- Robert Scoble
Twitter is a piece of crap - BUT it's where the audience is (currently).
- Jim Connolly
Now it is starting to feel like FF again with you bigging it up again Robert ;)
- Travis Koger
Maybe google wave will change the way we use twitter, etc. again. Haven't tried it yet, but it might succeed where friendfeed "failed" - getting enough people to use it.
- Frank S.
Travis: I had to go and clean out my Twitter and Facebook accounts and spread out my usage.
- Robert Scoble
Agreed! - Friendfeed is so much better (for as long as it really lasts in Facebook world...)
- Matthew Blaisdell
from iPhone
Robert: I'm thinking of setting up a facebook account for my Marketing blog - what do you think?
- Jim Connolly
@Scobleizer I don't think Friendfeed would be quite so popular if it weren't for twitter
- Prolific Programmer
from IM
Twitter is the new Myspace - HAHA - this quote made my day. For me it is just becoming a multiplicator for my friendfeed but it is important for that!
- Sascha Pallenberg
Prolific: I'm not so sure. Blogs made Twitter. So, what if there were no Twitter? We would still talk up something else. But maybe FriendFeed wouldn't have thrived anyway. Twitter hit a sweet spot with its easy to program API, it's easy to use interface, and its cute name and branding.
- Robert Scoble
Twitter works extremely well on mobile devices. I constantly see people tweeting whereas it's more difficult to do with FriendFeed's interface for a typical user.
- imabonehead
Really think that Twitter is annoying it's users too much. There's some problems out there that are really being ignored. Here's an example of a problem that could be solved very simply, but no action is being taken (if it was solved it'd create a lot of goodwill) http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter...
- Edd McArdle
Robert, now that FriendFeed's people are working for Facebook, and since Facebook has already been making changes to make it more "open socially", do you think eventually that Facebook will become the best place to have serious conversations?
- Carlton Hackett
I've been thinking so too. Although, I wonder how the non-Soc/net junkies will respond to that?
- Carlton Hackett
Robert, two thoughts. #1 - do you think Google really would let it die? Acquiring Twitter would be more like its YouTube acquisition than Jaiku (in terms of price and # of users). Secondly, what would Twitter have to change for you to change your opinion?
- Ben Parr
I really, really, really want Twitter to work out is the thing. It's just a pain in the neck to communicate without either losing the conversation or spamming useless banter over multiple Tweets because you can't fit it in 140 characters. That's just my experience. Those still spending most their time there don't mind it I guess.
- Jesse Stay
I like Twitter. The conversation flows pretty well for me, and to be fair, I get more @replies there than I get replies here to my posts.
- Chris Nixon
I think a combination of the Retweet API and a true threaded replies architecture and UI could change some of my opinion on that though if they do it.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: It's NOT just your experience. Twitter is getting less valuable the bigger it gets. The spam / porn / bots issue is insane and ruining the experience.
- Jim Connolly
Chris: I have a twitter account with over 20,000 followers and get ten times as many replies here as I get there. Here I only have a small following. The calibre of people I connect with here is better too.
- Jim Connolly
Jesse, have Twitter improved their communication with developers since you wrote about it in April?
- Edd McArdle
Edd, over the last week I have noticed a difference, yes, but it's hard to tell if it will remain that way. They now seem to have a project manager over the API dev team (Ryan Sarver). He seems to be putting a filter on some things and keeping devs updated elsewhere. They're still learning though, much slower than FB or FriendFeed.
- Jesse Stay
agree on spam and bots, but it still is a nice little thing, if it remains what it was made for! marketing and reviewing thing isn't/shouldn't be there, true friendfeed is more effective as a tool for sending your message across, it is simple and strong
- testbeta
Jim, Jesse, Robert: Value varies. For me, Twitter value continues to increase. I use it to find out what's happening, meet up with people, get random insights into how people are doing, find new people. It all works well. There are many different use cases and one tool does not have to do them all.
- Rachel Clarke
Rachel: "It all works well"? Really? Twitter?
- Jim Connolly
Rachel, I agree with you. I just don't think Twitter works well for conversations, that's all. I use FriendFeed and Facebook for that. I use Twitter for different purposes, and I agree it does still have value.
- Jesse Stay
sometimes i think of Automattic's intense debate, but well friendfeed is intense debate, such a experience was never had on blogs, the commenting, liking, and so fast it propagates, even disqus commenting systems can't achieve what we have here on friendfeed, but i can't just throw away twitter, twitter still is good, true for the serious types it's word limit, reply system is a bit of...
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- testbeta
I would love to have FriendFeed as the commenting system on my blog.
- Chris Nixon
Chris, there are a few plugins that do that. I haven't tried them though.
- Jesse Stay
Chris: Check out what Scoble's doing with FF on building43.com
- Jim Connolly
Jim: yes. It works well for what I want it to do (I'm ignoring the ongoing issues with the DDOS). It's a free tool that adds far more value than it costs me to wait for odd outage.
- Rachel Clarke
Just checked your Twitter account and now understand exactly what you are saying.
- Jim Connolly
Jesse: agree, I use Facebook, Friendfeed, blogs, comments etc, all for different things. I even use the phone as a phone occasionally to talk with people ;-) But the assumption that one tool/service can do everything - and should do everything - is something I have a problem with. If something does not work for a person, don't use it.
- Rachel Clarke
The twitter ecoverse is cool, can do Psychological Profiles, can do Social Network Analysis. All those services that spawned as a result are amazing. I am also amazed at how dense Asians Languages are on Twitter, think about it they get about 60% more per tweet.
- Robert Higgins
Ben: at this point I am not sure what Twitter could do to win back my love. I will use it just like I use AT&T and United Airlines. I have very little love for those even though I use them frequently. Twitter wins because it is simple and flat and has great clients. I wouldn't cry if it disappeared, though.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
You are a hypocrite! I remember you use to sing the praises of Twitter all the time. Another toy comes along and you start bashing it. If I was Friendfeed management I would cancel your account now before you start bashing them. Robert Scoble is nothing but a follower of crowds anyway.
- Paul L. McCord Jr.
You want it to die? Such an odd statement. I have met so many great people through Twitter, and the news information I can find through search or news agencies or even people who are newshounds are amazing. I know it's not perfect and the last few weeks have definately proved that, and the spam is just awful. But to want to kill it, what a strong statement.
- PC Easy
from twhirl
Twitter is not abot writing blog posts or having conversations, its about small pieces of information being communicated to anyone who wants to listen. You do not have to listen, if you want a conversation use a forum or FriendFeed, use WordPress for blog posts. Stop trying to make Twitter into something it is not designed to be.
- Darren Rollett
I really used to like Twitter, still do sometimes. What I don't like is the Twitter hype. I don't seem able to turn on any media channel these days without reading/hearing or watching about it. Even the BBC reported that Twitter was under attack recently on the main BBC news. FFS come on, there must be more happening in the world than a micro blogging site with a few million users...
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- Nick Bristow
If you owned twitter would you sell to google?
- cheapsuits
from iPhone
Robert, Atleast something positive could come out of it. If Twitter sells to Google they might(though its not guaranteed) make it opensource and then a federation of twitter server(ala wave servers) can co-exist happily and that way we'll own our stuff(as Anil Dash and other points out). Or they might integrate it in Wave framework. Not that people are not gonna complain about it but thats a different topic.
- Abhishek
Surely an improvement in the service would be a more positive wish?
- Chris Nixon
Say what you want but something with the architecture of friendfeed is far more conversational then twitter could ever be.
- cheapsuits
I don't know why people think Twitter is the place to converse. It's really not built for that. I find myself enjoying the flow of conversations more on Facebook and FriendFeed.
- Naomi Williams
Self pimping? Hmmm... Perhaps not for all of us. And besides, self-pimping isn't limited to twitter.
- @JonAston
PS - Maybe it's just me, but you seem bitter lately. Hope you turn that around for yourself.
- @JonAston
Jon: You are right. People pimp on FriendFeed too; as I say in my new book.... :-)
- Jim Connolly
@jim, they will do anywhere, this is human nature, they do even in real life, so why not in virtual one?
- abdellah
"(Twitter) It's a horrid place to try to communicate anything other than a bit of self pimping." AMEN
- Alejandro
Personally I wish Google would buy both Facebook and Twitter so they could both die.
- Brian Sullivan
@brian, hey where could I read to you then?!!
- abdellah
@Frank S. Google Wave will only be valid if you actually have other friends/collegues who use Google Wave. Otherwise you'll be using it with the *crickets*
- Naomi Williams
Oh yeah -- forgot that due to circumstances beyond our control FF is now Facebook. ;-)
- Brian Sullivan
oh yeah , they share the same vision, they got the same perception...
- abdellah
It's the ff interface (developers) that make it great, but it's really you guys and gals, the people friendfeed attracted that make it valuable to me. Let's consider a real migration to a more reliable long term social media. It has to be open (data portable, unsellable) to get my trust
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
I hope the FaceBook people will take comments like these to heart. I do like twitter but the functionality FriendFeed brought was the next generation in stream notification.
- Chris Jackson
Ohh time to pimp Jim's new book on Twitter ;)
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
Mark: Yeah - all I need is a title. Oh, and a book....and the time to write one....then I will be pimping like a pro!
- Jim Connolly
Wow Robert, I was thinking this the past few days and could never bring it to words...well done
- Braden Douglass
Jim: I'm time bankrupt but love sharing and collaborating. Let's hire a ghostwriter to capture our best ideas in an intelligible manner :). Joking of course, there's no easy way to spread our thoughts but doing it ourselves
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
I was gonna call the Funky Phantom. (That really dates me.)
- Jim Connolly
Robert, I challenge you to stop using Twitter for a month and then blog about the experience. And that includes hiding all Tweets in FF.
- Mike Doeff
from iPhone
Lets face it, Twitter was built as an update service - a big Internet megaphone. The natural transition has been from update service to marketing service. Big Internet Megaphone. It's good at that, but it's not at conversations nor at discovery. The larger problem is people still approach Twitter like a true social engagement tool - and it's simply not. The disconnect between perception and reality results in the poor adoption numbers and other soft metrics.
- AJ Kohn
twitter is noise. filter it and you can find some gold. imho, that's beyond mere self-pimpage
- Rob Schieber
Agreed Rob. I'd prefer semantic algorithms applied to all tweets. I'm interested in real time search and datamining. And semantic extraction on all status would allow for real time "sorting"
- Mark Essel
from iPhone
i'd love to meetup with fellows and see what api scraping is going on - know where threads are for that?
- Rob Schieber
Idk, This seems so much better then twitter.
- SeanParnell
It does have a lot of noise, granted - but if it went away now, I'm not sure where everyone would run to. Facebook is too silly, Linkedin is too stolid, and everything else is too fractured for me to communicate with all the people I want to in a single shot. Guess I'd end up doing everything through ping.fm after all.
- Ciaoenrico
Wow, Isn't online chit-chat such a fuss? :)
- SeanParnell
Robert, just a week or two you were saying that Twitter is beating FriendFeed because of scanability http://friendfeed.com/scoblei.... And you had lots of complaints about the FriendFeed user interface. You also talked about how Twitter was much better after you un-followed everyone and hand picked who you're following. I have to ask, what has changed in the past few days to make you say that the service should die? Feels like you're flip flopping.
- Mike Doeff
I noticed that in the past two weeks, the tweet intensity has greatly decreased from all my follows in Twitter. Granted, I'm not following too many, but the ones I do follow have traditionally tweeted a lot each day. Is this a trend (has Twitter become a has been) or is this simply a coincidental anomaly?
- Jeff Sayre
Robert I find myself on friendfeed more these days
- (jeff)isageek
@brian would you consider myspace if both facebook and twitter die?!!(ps: sorry I forget the LOL)
- abdellah
Myspace -- don't know. I haven't really tried or paid attention to it. But probably not -- isn't it Facebook like? Maybe usenet? ;-)
- Brian Sullivan
brian, let forget all those techie and go irc :)
- abdellah
IMO, people who don't like the limitations of Twitter and whine about it hampering them are using it wrong. Twitter is not a place to pimp your blog or drive traffic to your site. It is not an SEO tool. It's not a place for you to compete in order to get more 'followers'. If you've ever tried to do any of these things, or if you ever followed more than a few hundred people, then yes, no...
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- Otto
Jesse Stay: you should stop complaining so much about twitter when you build an entire business based on their lack of functionality and other issues.
- Mihai Secasiu
Mihai, I'm not complaining - they can do what they want. As I said I really want them to succeed. It's a matter of fact that they do have their flaws - I'm hoping to help them fix those, assuming they're listening at all. What are you doing to help Twitter get better?
- Jesse Stay
it is like twitter if for what,where, when and friendfeed is for why, how
- testbeta
Mike: just because I use a service doesn't mean I love it. I use ATT and United all the time and they suck too.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
And yes Twitter has some good things about it. Doesn't mean it is all good. Personally it is overused and overhyped and YES I am partially responsible.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Apostol I get value out of Twitter. You aren't listening. I get value out of AT&T too but it COULD be so much more. Chris I tried to be positive but Twitter just doesn't respond to positivity. Plus they are cynical AT BEST about their users. Read the Twittergate documents to see just how cynical they are.
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
Twitter was just there at the right time. It's not the best solution to the problem (microblogging), but it's good ~enough~.
- Trent Hamm
You seriously think Twitter will die once it gets bought by a 'bigger' company?
- Mike Shields
Mike: do you use Dodgeball? It was bought by Google. So was Jaiku.
- Robert Scoble
Trent: did you just call Twitter the Microsoft of microblogging? Yeah, that's sorta what I was trying to say too! ;-)
- Robert Scoble
I just find it amazing that all the early adopters get really snobby about Twitter now it is getting more mainstream. There is something snobby about people's attitude to Facebook as well. I'm not a fan of Facebook but I know more people who use Facebook than use Twitter or Friendfeed combined. Even my mum has a Facebook account but she'd never be on Twitter or Friendfeed. Twitter...
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- Paul Nash
I liked Pownce. I wonder what SixApart has cooking up for them. So there's really no chance for Plurk to make a comeback and take back the community? With all the outage problems Twitter has, I would think Plurk would try to capitalize on that. Guess not.
- John Wang
now if the Google Reader team could just get their new commenting system streamlined and real-time ... :)
- Peter du Toit (S.Africa)
Paul: it's not hard to understand if you are in our shoes. Here's why. When a company is young and struggling to get noticed, they love having early adopters. After all, that's the ONLY WAY a company gets to the next stage. I've never seen a company go straight to Oprah stage without getting early adopters excited. Then once the company gets enough traction they usually start mistreating the early adopters. In this case Twitter stabbed them in the back. Leo Laporte, for instance ...
- Robert Scoble
...got me excited about Twitter and was THE REASON it was the big huge deal at that 2007 SXSW. He had more followers than Mashable last year. But did he get put on the Suggested User List? No. So now Mashable has more than a million and Leo has a knife in his back. And you think it's amazing that early adopters turn their backs on Twitter? Really now.
- Robert Scoble
I don't see how Leo has a knife in his back. There was no preconceived notion that anyone would be added to that list. Who cares? He was fine before that list was created, and he can be just as fine now, and just as engaging.
- Andru Edwards
Andru: when he was hyping up the service and telling his users to use it, he was getting something in return: being at the top of the follower lists. When Twitter artificially put its own people at the top of the follower lists, and handed out grants of followers (worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars, by the way -- Mashable has changed its entire business to be Twitter centric) they specifically dissed Leo and many others. Most of whom won't point it out in public.
- Robert Scoble
Sadly true. I'm in much the same boat -- Twitter is a necessity for professionals and bloggers to stay on top of things, but other socialnets like Brightkite and FF are light years beyond it, which doesn't look to be changing any time soon. Don't even get me started on the spammers and the get-rich-quick'ers.
- Ryan Meader
But before the SUL was released, didn't Leo abandon Twitter in favor of Jaiku, due to Twitter having "Twit" as part of its name? Just saying, if I owned a list that I had complete control over, and someone showed that behavior towards me (whether it was right or wrong, I am not judging), I would think twice before putting them on a list that will result in many people seeing they they...
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- Andru Edwards
I can't agree with you more, Robert.
- Jon Ursenbach
Scobe: I very much disagree that it is about self pimping. Perhaps your senses are mush because you follow too many? I absolutely love getting that link to a new article or research, or to get a tweet from that celeb that makes me think and provides insight into a new world. I also use it as a research tool, for exploratory purposes. Twitter, as you know very well, is about what you make it, and that is a tenuous notion that really is influenced by who you follow.
- Chad Gesser
Andru: again, the list did NOT exist in the days when we were hyping up Twitter. So, there was a "promise" to early adopters that if they invested time in the service they could be at the top of the follower lists. Sort of how PlayFoursquare is today promising users that they can become mayors of places they frequent more than anyone else. What Twitter did was the equivilent of PlayFoursquare telling everyone that their "mayorship" doesn't matter anymore and that Oprah is now mayor of everywhere.
- Robert Scoble
Chad: one thing you have to remember about me is that I see that Twitter has 1,001 uses. Stop seeing the world as black and white. This is one post I'm making about Twitter among thousands. Translation: I already agreed with you. But you have to admit that many people use Twitter for self promotion.
- Robert Scoble
Andru: and anyway, the SUL is hardly the only reason to diss Twitter. Twitter still goes down all the time, it still has stupid rate limits. It still can't block spam effectively. It still has no friend management. It still has no features that didn't exist a year ago. And it is, in many respects, behaving worse. I'm hearing from developers that Twitter is becoming more closed, not more open (to monetize) and we're seeing them pick winners before the marketplace is done (bit.ly anyone?)
- Robert Scoble
The nice thing about Twitter is that it keeps your message short and to the point. Friendfeed is great but it doesn't lend itself well to an external app out of the browser. Also FriendFeed and any of these services you don't own your content
- Seth Goldstein
Seth: bing! So, back to the blog we will go. Except, why are we still here? ;-)
- Robert Scoble
I like friendfeed because of its realtimeyness, but I like twitter because it requires you to be concise. I have seen some brilliant tweets done in 140 characters or less. I think that's always been the allure of twitter, its sheer simplicity. How many features can you add to twitter without actually changing the core of what twitter is?
- Tomy Thomson
Robert: But what do you want from these companies ? Chaps like you give them the oxygen of publicity they need and they court you and then when they become successful you suddenly start to criticise them. Friendfeed has become successful (in great part to your endless plugging of it) and the founders will now go on to make money through their company being taken over by Facebook. You,...
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- Paul Nash
Scoble: no doubt....I can deal with the self promotion, the e marketing and spam garbage though to me is what has gooootttt to go
- Chad Gesser
Paul: my role in life is to use what will be, not what is. I don't turn on many companies, but Twitter isn't one that dealt with early adopters on good faith.
- Robert Scoble
Is there a "social media" company that has dealt with early adopters in "good faith"? Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr I suspect don't qualify ? Any that do?
- Brian Sullivan
all platforms seem to have self pimpering styles, why so passionate against twitter? Objectional question, not one of rhetoric.
- nick tadd
Brian: I didn't know that any of those have actively dissed their best early adopters. Facebook kicked me off, but only because I broke the TOS. It's always been straight up with me. Same with Flickr, although I do watch Thomas Hawk's talk about their censorship.
- Robert Scoble
none as brian says, they all deal with them, and "the earlier adopter" contribute to their evolution until they sell (sorry)
- abdellah
nick: because it's so prevalent there. "Look at my blog post about xxx" is almost a staple on Twitter. It's a new RSS reader. Which is fine, I use it too for that! :-)
- Robert Scoble
Robert, I think you may have the makings for one of your future blogs here. Perhaps you do it for that reason? ;) The thing about Twitter is always going to be its LBE. It's a mainstream LBE to Social Media. For that very reason its perfect for business, government, and non profit to take public temperature and promote. The other "noise" is the "MV", the "mainstream voice". The conversation is 4 way.(and yes sometimes only 1 way) but there it is and its not going to go away any time soon.
- Melanie Reed
Yes, indeed, Twitter is the Microsoft of microblogging. It's good enough, but not the best - but it has the huge advantage that everyone is using it, so you have to use it for compatibility reasons.
- Trent Hamm
DAMN Robert I HATE that you are right on this one!!!!!
- Arleen Anderson
Hopefully you use it for positive self pimping and not for negative pimping... which is inevitable
- Kevin Burrell
If FF would have taken mobile seriously, the game might look different right now
- Alex C. Williams
Alex, they are taking mobile seriously - they sold to Facebook. :-)
- Jesse Stay
I can't see how Twitter can survive Facebook now. FB will bring Twitter down, the only chance they got is to sell to Google.
- Patrik Johansson
What makes people think Facebook or Twitter is all-conquering? There's a new generation coming through, and they aren't using these services. It's very important not to get sucked in by the hype of a service you use. Fanboys will talk up the positives and ignore the negatives, giving you a skewed message. The truth is somewhere in the massive grey area in between.
- Chris Nixon
The new generation uses Facebook a lot, but not Twitter.
- Steph (sh_skew)
from email
Let me say that it is not twitter per se. It is the population of twitter to make it the place it is at the moment. Whenever there is a (free entrance) place crowded of people, there will be spambots to pollute it.
- funkyboy
from Posty
Twitter is just a temporary solution for a quick mixture of instant messaging + status updates + chat forum.
- Bora Wiemann
Just having a discussion today that Twitter will eventually go bankrupt when the hype is over
- Khuram Hussain
I don't agree with you Robert. Twitter is easy to use, succinct and versatile. I've made multiple very meaningful connections through my use of twitter. I do like friendfeed's threaded conversations which are great but in a way it only helps those who have big followings like yourself, because people are more apt to comment on your thread than say mine because they know the conversation...
more...
- Lon Cohen
For example - how do I message you directly so you know I'm speaking to you (i.e. Twitter @ reply) but all your followers and my followers know that we're having a conversation in Twitter back and forth so that they can follow and interject when they want. Everytime we do that we have to start a brand new discussion thread and I have to "tell" you somehow that I'm talking to you. Twitter is like email/phone conversations and friendfeed is like collective blogging/commenting.
- Lon Cohen
Brilliant. Paul McCrudden spent 6 weeks tracking the time spent waiting in various stores and restaurants. He then invoiced them for his time. Some ignore, some respond and some, like Pret, have paid
- Rachel Clarke
Good summary and diagram of the steps to take in becoming a social brand - Objective..listen..identify areas..participate..build relationships
- Rachel Clarke